[fic con't] YGO: Guard Dog Con't
Feb. 8th, 2005 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ickaimp... whoa... okay, cannot just past all of the fic here, s'too big... @_@;;
... dude. Yu-Gi-Oh! so addictive. Even sucky dub. Kinda like a soap opera/train wreck. You know it's bad but you just can't stop giggling and look away.
Okay, anyway... here's where the fic gets weird. Some scenes have been re-written (again. Still not happy with the Yuugi-sleepover chapter)so re-posting the entire thing. Jeez. Is over 13,000 words now... @_@;;
References to the 'Tremors' TV series from the Sci-Fi channel, (yeah, based off those Graboid movies) a damn funny show. Highly recommend it to those who haven't seen it.
+++
"Oi, Mokuba..." Jounouchi didn't bother looking away from the large television screen as he trounced the younger Kaiba in a racing video game. "How come your brother wears all those buckles and stuff? He tryin' ta outdo Yuugi in the bondage statement department or something?"
The dark haired boy snorted, not quite breaking out into full laughter. "Didn't you know? 'Niisama's got this anti-gravity problem, from a lab accident. If he doesn't strap his clothing to him, it'll all go flying off."
"Yer kidding." The blond tore his gaze from the screen to stare at the wild haired teen. "Tell me yer kiddin'."
"Yup!" Mokuba laughed, using the distraction to pull his racer ahead of Jounouchi's. Jounouchi muffled a curse and turned his attention back to the game.
"Brat."
Mokuba snickered in return, even as Jounouchi regained his number one spot on the track. "Nah. Honestly, I don't know why he dresses like that." Mokuba shrugged. "Intimidation? I dunno. He picks out his clothes, not me."
"Thank goodness for that." Jounouchi's nose wrinkled at the thought of the werewolf costume Mokuba had talked him into for the costume party. Mokuba had ended up playing -his- bodyguard, not the other way around. It seemed like everyone and their mother had been trying to pet him. Too weird. "You'd have everyone running around in stripes."
"What's wrong with stripes?!" Mokuba demanded, making an effort to pull ahead. Jounouchi blocked him with a mad cackle. "Better than that purple trench coat of his. -I- certainly never would have chosen that. Can we 'grape'?"
"Yeah, that was a little fruity, wasn't it?" Jounouchi smirked. Mokuba ran his car into his in retaliation. Jounouchi grinned. "Mebbe he's just colour blind. Y'know, why he sticks to black and white so much."
"Or he does it to freak the hell out of the Board Members. He's been running the company for how many years now and they still can't get him into a suit and tie?" The smaller teen chuckled with amusement. There was no love lost between the Kaiba Brothers and the Kaiba Corp Board.
"Status thing then? He dresses like that ta show he's powerful 'nuff that he doesn't got to dress like the rest of the population?" He ventured. The strange flared outfits certainly leant to the frightening air that cause many of the weaker duellists to run screaming at just their first sight of Kaiba. He grinned. "-Or it could be that he simply doesn't like ties."
Mokuba snorted, drawing attention to their own causal clothing --neither of them would ever voluntarily be caught dead wearing anything resembling a tie.
"Point." Jounouchi conceded.
"You know..." Mokuba said thoughtfully "We're going to have to go shopping at some point. If I gotta go to some fancy shindig, that means you've gotta go too and I know for a fact you don't have anything formal enough to wear in your closet."
The word was little more than a squeak out of his throat. "Shopping?"
"Yup." He didn't have to look to see Mokuba's grin turn fierce, predator like. He'd seen it well enough when the younger boy had talked him into wearing his oldest, worn pair of jeans for the werewolf costume. The younger Kaiba had something already planned in that devious little brain of his, something that did NOT bode well for what remained of Jounouchi's sanity. "It'll be -fun-."
Mokuba's car pulled ahead of his, beating his to the finish line.
"...Shit."
+++
+++
"Yuuuuuuuuugiiii!!" While the smaller man was expecting a joyful welcome from his best friend Jounouchi, he was not expecting the double tackle he got from his best friend and the younger Kaiba as soon the door opened to the Kaiba household.
The younger Kaiba who was now nearly as tall as him, with a great deal more mass as well. "Aah!"
"Nice to know I'm welcomed..." He commented weakly, the breath nearly squeezed out of him.
Jounouchi was a hands-on, easy to read person. If he liked you, you got hugs, play wrestling and hair messings. If he didn't like you, you got fists in the face and feet in the gut. Mokuba in the past had been affectionate only towards his brother, but a few months in Jounouchi's influence had obviously changed that.
Both ends of the 'Yuugi sandwich' snickered happily, shaking him slightly as they broke apart, pulling him to the warmth of the mansion.
"Wasn't sure if you'd really come or not!" Mokuba grinned; bouncing around him as Jounouchi took is pack. "Cause 'Niisama's gonna be here too, but I made him promise not to challenge you to any duels. It'd be a shame to ruin a perfectly good movie night fighting."
Hint hint, nudge nudge. "I'll do my best not to challenge him to any duels either." He promised.
"You'd think Duelling was all they ever thought about in this household." Jounouchi grumbled good-naturedly. This earned him wide-eyed incredulous looks from both the still Number One Ranking Duellist and the Number Two Ranking Duellist's younger brother.
"It's not?!"
Yuugi found himself being pulled through the maze of the house by Mokuba, both of them laughing madly as Jounouchi chased them, mildly-cursing all the way. The blond chased them around a large room obviously meant as a comfortable living room, the three of them duck, dodging and scrambling over furniture, their laughter punctuated by the occasional yips and yells until they collapsed in a snickering heap on the sofa.
He glanced up in time to see the elder Kaiba standing in the doorway with a dispassionate eye. "Yo, Kaiba-kun!" He waved.
Kaiba inclined his head and walked away.
"Don't take it personally." Mokuba suggested from his sprawled position, pinning Jounouchi's legs to the sofa. "He's just not used to having other people in the house."
"Oi, Mokuba." Jounouchi prodded the dark haired boy with a leg. "Is he? ...Y'know."
The younger Kaiba seemed to know immediately what the blond was saying. "He should be fine."
"Okay." Any apparent worry dissipated at Mokuba's words. Yuugi raised an eyebrow. Jounouchi? Worrying about Kaiba? When did this happened?
Of course, he supposed that having lived under the same roof as him for the past several months might have had something to do with it. And Jounouchi had yet to show up at the game shop cursing and sputtering like he used to after an encounter with Kaiba, so that was a positive sign.
Yuugi grinned. It was always nice to see his friends get along.
"So, food first or movie first or just grab snacks to watch during movie?" Jounouchi was practically crackling with glee, nearly pushing the two smaller people off the sofa onto the floor.
"Food!" Mokuba cheered, hopping off. "We can bring it up here and watch the movie!"
Jounouchi just grinned, glancing over with a slightly apologetic shrug. "What can I say? Kid after my own heart."
"You've trained him well, Jounouchi-kun."
"Hey!"
+
Several hours later, the spiky haired boy glanced down at his best friend, who was sprawled out over two of the three futons they had put on the floor and snoring. Mokuba wasn't much better, using Jounouchi's rising and falling chest as a pillow, snoring in counter point to the blond.
Yuugi smiled serenely at his friends. They had worn each other out, watching the movies, munching on popcorn and junk food, wrestling like kids and chattering away at each other. He should really be asleep with them as well, he'd been just as bad as the two of them, but he wanted to enjoy the peaceful moment a while longer.
Jounouchi seemed happy here. Yuugi was both relived and uneasy. Jounouchi and Mokuba got along well, but he had a few unanswered questions. Most of them dealing with the taller man standing in the doorway watching them.
He slipped out from under Jounouchi's sprawled arm and quietly padded over to Kaiba. Once again, he wished he were just a little bit taller. It was hard to feel intimidating when you barely came up to someone's chest. They stood in silence for several minutes, watching the sleepers, before Kaiba finally acknowledged him.
"Yuugi."
"Kaiba-kun."
Yuugi sparkled at the stoic businessman. "It's nice to see my friends finally getting along."
Kaiba grunted.
Yuugi smiled wider. "And I just wanted to let you know that while I may not have a puzzle any longer, I do have a shovel." He said sweetly. "And a tomb robber that owes me a favour or two."
Actually, it was more like he owed Bakura a favour or two, but Ryou would probably be more than happy to help out...
And if he didn't, Malik knew the -best- places to hide a body.
An eyebrow lifted, Kaiba turning the full force of his attention at him. "Is that a threat?" The words were a low hiss, a menacing rumble from a not-quite slumbering dragon.
"No. Just letting you know." He smiled cheerfully. "Jounouchi-kun is my best friend. I don't like to see him hurt."
He liked to get see his friends get along. However, that did not mean he was going to stand by and do nothing if his friends were hurting each other. And Jounouchi was far less likely to hurt Kaiba then Kaiba was to hurt Jounouchi. Although, granted, Kaiba was more likely to do it without realizing it.
"I have no interest in the puppy." Kaiba said disdainfully, returning his attention towards the slumbering boys again. "He's Mokuba's concern, not mine."
Yuugi nodded. And that would be why Jounouchi talked about the older Kaiba as often as he did Mokuba. And why Kaiba was staring as much at Jounouchi as he was his brother....
Well, he supposed some things never changed. Kaiba was, and probably always would be stubborn, especially when it came to letting people in close around him. It was just one of those things that made him Kaiba.
Just as Jounouchi was stubborn when it came to the people he cared about.
It would be interesting to see who would win the clash of the thick skulls.
"Just as long as we both know where the other stands." He smiled genteelly and patted Kaiba on the arm. "Good night, Kaiba-kun. Sleep well."
Kaiba grunted in response. Yuugi merely bowed his head and and returned to the futons, curling up next to Jounouchi again.
He was aware of the taller boy's presence lurking in the doorway for a while.
+
Yuugi woke up again a few hours before dawn, glancing around the unfamiliar surroundings. To his surprise, he counted three heads beside his own on the futons instead of two.
Jounouchi was next to him, snoring away softly. On the far end he could make out Mokuba's wild locks.
And Kaiba slept peacefully nestled in between the two of them, Mokuba now partly sprawled across his brother instead of his keeper. Jounouchi hadn't seemed to have noticed, one of his arms draped across Kaiba where it had earlier been around Mokuba.
He hid a grin, silently wishing his other self could see this, their fearsome rival looking not quite so fierce, in a peaceful way.
One thing his other self had taught him was that there was an art to sharing a bed with other people. It had been awkward, the first several times his other self had slept outside of the puzzle, for one reason or another. Didn't matter that they were two parts of a whole, or that they were similar sizes, it was just... odd, to be asleep and roll over and find someone there. Limbs didn't match up, waking up with hair, non-corporal or not, in your face and mouth.
Not to mention buckles getting tangled up...
But after a while, they just kind of figured it out. Yuugi always slept better with his other self nearby, feeling safe, protected.
He'd fallen out of the habit in recent years, his other self having passed on, but none of his current bed companions apparently had any of that awkwardness.
Almost made him wonder. Maybe they were getting along better then either was saying.
A yawn blind-sided him and he lay back down, snuggled contentedly next to his larger friend's side. It was nice, almost like when his other self had been there....
+
When Yuugi woke up again, long after the sun had risen, it was just the three of them again, Yuugi tucked up against one of Jounouchi's sides, Mokuba against his other, pinning the blankets covering Jounouchi down.
Perhaps he had just dreamed that Kaiba had slept with them last night.
Then again, perhaps he wasn't.
He smiled, sleepily betting on the latter. Especially when Mokuba stirred and whispered his brother's name.
On the other hand, perhaps it wasn't any of his business. But it would certainly be interesting to see what came of this.
+++
+++
Wake up.
Climb out of Kaiba's bed.
Put Mokuba back in his bed.
Go back to sleep. In own bed.
Wake up.
Glare at smirking bastard Kaiba.
Go to spar.
Hand Kaiba his ass.
Get ass handed back to several times.
Take shower.
Get dressed.
Wake up Mokuba.
Eat breakfast.
Finally wake up. Coffee good.
Notice something odd in reflection of coffee pot.
"WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?!"
"Language, Jounouchi." Mokuba scolded from over his bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.
"Yeah... but... but... " Jounouchi gestured empathically towards his reflection, then reversed the motion and tugged at the leather collar around his neck.
The one with the initials 'KC' hanging from the front like tags on a dog's collar. It certainly hadn't been on him when he went to sleep last night...
"Oh. Cool!" Mokuba grinned. "I see you got a communicator!"
"Communicator?" What did that have to do with dog collars?!
"Yeah." Mokuba turned the collar of his school uniform to once side, to show off the 'KC' pin displayed there. "'Niisama and I use them to communicate, usually while hosting a duel. Is easier than a phone, cause all you have to do is press it once to start talking, so it's hands free, which is nice when we're looking for trouble. It's pretty much for emergency use only. Since you got one, think this means that 'Niisama finally accepts you as my guard."
Oh.
Well, that still didn't explain how the dog collar got there...
Note to self: Get more sleep. Obviously messing with awareness levels.
"Couldn't I have gotten something round? Something that screams less 'Property of Kaiba Corp'?"
+++
+++
"Yer fooling me."
Mokuba smirked. "Nope."
Jounouchi's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "Kaiba's startin' a Duelling School?"
"Academy." Mokuba affirmed.
"Ya mean that ownin' the rights to the game, the theme parks and the tournaments aren't enough? He's gotta start his own school too?"
"Yeah, well..." Mokuba shrugged. "Look at it this way. The really -good- Duellists do really bad in school, right?"
"Well..." The blond scratched his head. "I prolly wouldn't have done much better even without ditching to attend tournaments. But Yuugi went from being one of the highest ranking students to one of the lowest after startin' on Duel Monsters."
"Exactly. The good Duellists, the serious ones, don't tend to do as well in school -because- they spend all that time away from it for Tournaments and Duels and such. So if you have a school -for- Duelling..."
"...Then the serious Duellists have a way to Duel, go to school and even possibly graduate."
"You got it." Mokuba's grin lit up his entire face. "And Kaiba Corp has an immediate target audience to test and give us feedback on the latest duelling innovations too."
"Beta testing and feedback, all in one centralised location." Jounouchi grinned, putting his new-found business knowledge to work. Mokuba had been a patient teacher, teaching him jargon and behind the scenes of the business world once he'd admitted he was clueless as to what exactly everyone was busy with. Suddenly what had seemed like mindless meetings made sense. Or some of them anyway, some of them -were- really mindless. But it was really surprising to realise just exactly how hard Kaiba worked. "Smart."
"Yes!" Mokuba cheered. "He -can- be taught!!!"
"Eh, shaddup." It wasn't nice to hit your boss... it wasn't nice to hit your boss... However, hair noogies were okay. Which he then quickly proceeded to do, gleefully wrapping an arm around the wild-haired boy's neck and proceeding to rub the knuckles of his fist into Mokuba's scalp. The teen squawked, laughed and proceeded to attempt to squirm his way out of Jounouchi's grasp.
Which is how Kaiba found them when he opened the door to the stopped limo, to see what was holding them up. One perfectly arched eyebrow rose at the display of roughhousing. "If you're done molesting my brother..."
"'NIISAMA!!!!" Mokuba's screech would have been pure comedy in motion, if it hadn't come from less than a hand's breath from his ear. He quickly released his grip so that the younger teen could charge out and attempt to strangle his older brother.
Which was a sight that more than made up for the temporary deafness in one ear...
Grinning slightly to himself, he followed the Kaiba brothers into what was shaping up to be... well, a school. Dorms, Classrooms, Cafeteria, Gymnasium, Auditorium.
Duelling Arenas.
Sweet.
Kaiba grunted upon noticing Jounouchi's attention to the large platforms and hologram projectors. "They should be working. Still need to do testing to see if the new modifications work."
Mokuba got that look that means he just went from zero to forty in two brain cells flat. Jounouchi held up a hand as he began to look between the two taller men with a calculating gleam in his eyes. "Oh, no..."
"Aw, come on..." Mokuba wheedled.
Kaiba glanced nervously between the two of them.
"It's perfect." Mokuba continued blithely. "You both have your decks, don't you?"
"The Mutt?" The sound out of Kaiba's mouth is halfway between a squeak and a growl.
"Oi. I could kick your butt."
"Unlikely."
Jounouchi grinned, wolf like. Gotcha. "Put yer skills where your mouth is, Dragon-boy."
Slight pause from Kaiba, then the Blue Eyes look came over his features, the one that said that someone was going to be on the end of a dragon driven Burst Stream soon. "You're on."
A cheer from Mokuba, a wave to the technicians and they were on their way up the raised platforms to duel it out. Jounouchi glanced down at his charge, realising that Mokuba was looking back and forth between them with obvious conflict.
"Oi, Mokuba!" He waved. "Cheer us both on!"
Panic disappeared from Mokuba's eyes as the kid waved back. Mokuba may have liked him, but Kaiba was his brother. It wasn't fair to make him choose between the two of them in who to cheer on.
Then it was time to duel.
+
"YE-AH!!" Mokuba cheered, bouncing around. "That was so cool!!! Both the Blue Eyes White Dragon AND the Red Eyes Black Dragon!!! At the same time!!! Whoooooooo!!!"
"Yeah!" Jounouchi grinned, slapping Mokuba five on one of the hyper kid's passes. He was feeling pretty darn good about the duel too.
Kaiba gave them both a stony look. "You lost." He pointed out, clearly not comprehending their obvious enthusiasm.
"Yeah, but it was a close loss." Jounouchi's grin grew wider. He'd had a blast up there. It had been a while since he'd gone head to head with someone who was stronger than he was and wasn't Yuugi. "If Time Wizard hadn't landed on the skull, I would have kicked your ass and you know it."
This earned him a disdainful snort. "Placing the outcome of the entire duel on one spin-"
"Works well fer me, so shaddup about it." Jounouchi drawled lazily. "You got yer techniques, I got mine. And next time, we're gonna cream ya."
"'We'-?" Oooo... the Imperial tone was back. He must have struck a nerve.
"Me and the rest of my deck. Why? Ya nervous?"
"Hardly." But there weren't any comments about not wasting the energy on a lower ranking worthy duellist, so Jounouchi took that as a positive sign. Sometimes when dealing with Kaiba, it was more what he didn't say than what he did say.
"So what's with the colour scheme around here anyway?" He asked, changing the subject. "Red, Blue, Yellow. Your designer guys forget the rest of the colour palette?"
"The three levels of classes, actually." Kaiba informed him mildly, although there was still a touch of distain in his tone. "Ra Gold, Osiris Blue and Silpher Red."
"Who's top?"
"Ra, actually. Osiris is middle level and Silpher is left for rabble-rousers and lowerclass players."
Jounouchi paused. Waaaaait a minute... Ra being top he could understand, something about him being the top Egyptian god or something. The God of the sun, which accounted for the yellow.
But Silpher had been Yuugi's card, before he got the other two. And Silpher was the lowest level...
"Still got some animosity there, huh Kaiba?"
"I beg your pardon?" Kaiba's eyebrow rose again. Mokuba snickered, evidently having also caught this slight.
"Never mind. Where's the Yellow's classrooms?"
"Gold. They're not complete yet."
"Right over here, Jounouchi!" Mokuba volunteered, bounding off.
"Perfect." He quickly followed, loosing Kaiba in the process. Kaiba would probably kill him for this, which was half the fun.
"What are we doing?" Mokuba giggled, glancing back.
"Being a deviant high school malcontent." He grinned.
"Sweet!" Mokuba bounced. "Which room do you want, Jounouchi?"
"Toilets."
"Just past the Egyptian room." Mokuba lead the way.
"Egyptian room?" He echoed.
"Since many of our... past adventures kinda originated from Egypt, 'Niisama thought it was a good idea to teach students exactly where the game came from, to prevent it happening a second time." Mokuba shrugged. He had a bit of an easier time accepting the strange magical occurrences than his brother, but he was still more a child of science then magic. "Toilets?"
"Here we are." Jounouchi spotted the toilets and ducked into the men's room, noticing the nice clean walls. On the third stall, he crouched down, pulling a pen out of his pocket and began to write.
"Graffiti?" Mokuba's eyes were wide and incredulous.
"Every school has it." He agreed. "Doesn't seem like one if it doesn't. There. Tell me whatcha think. It ain't no 'They paint these walls to stop my pen, but the outhouse bandit has struck again', but I think it's appropriate."
He didn't have to ask twice, Mokuba crouching down to read it. "Hail to the Sun God, He's a Real Fun God, Ra Ra Ra..."
"'Niisama's probably gonna kill you for that." Mokuba informed him soberly, although his face was scrunched in mirth. "I like it."
"Glad to be of service." Jounouchi snapped a sloppy mock-salute, causing the smaller boy to finally break down into giggles. "Now just need to think of rhymes for 'Osiris' and 'Slipher'...."
+++
+++
Crap.
Crap crap crap crap with a whole plate of crapolla on the side.
He'd woken up late. The sun was up, lighting Kaiba's room through the closed curtains just enough to see easily.
And here he was, pinned by Mokuba on one side and Kaiba on the other, their body weight pressing against him, holding him down and preventing him from getting the hell out of there.
Trapped. Crap.
He nudged Mokuba with an elbow the best he could. "Wake up, Mokuba." He hissed, deliberately -not- looking at Ol' Blue Eyes at his back. He was dead. D-E-D, dead. "Wake up."
The tangled mass of black hair that was Mokuba stirred and mumbled a bit, then settled back down, one arm flopping over Jounouchi. Dammit. "Wake UP." He nudged the teen again. "Dammit, I -so- don't wanna know what your brother's gonna say when he wakes up and finds me here."
"He's going to say it would be a shame to waste the one morning this month that can be used for sleeping late arguing." Kaiba's sleep-rough voice rumbled at his back, causing all of his muscles in his body to freeze. Oh... shit.
"Go back to sleep, Mutt." Kaiba ordered drowsily, shifting slightly and somehow managing to press closer. "Mokuba will most likely wake in a few hours and demand to eat cereal and watch cartoons in bed."
"Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs." Mokuba murmured sleepily. "And that new duelling anime."
Jounouchi's head hit the pillow. He wasn't dead. He wasn't getting his ass kicked from here to Pluto.
When had he stepped into the Twilight Zone?
"Sleep, Mutt." Kaiba ordered again.
Oh... kay...
Well, sleep was good. He obviously wasn't going anywhere anyway. And if Kaiba wasn't going to beat him bloody for finding him in his bed, he wasn't going to argue.
And when they woke up in the morning, they'd watch Saturday morning cartoons, get hyped up on sugared cereals and Mokuba and him would team up and skunk Kaiba in a pillow fight.
All and all, that actually sounded like a pretty good start to a weekend to him...
+++
+++
To say that Seto Kaiba was annoyed would be a vast understatement.
He was -livid-.
After taking Kaiba Corporation from Gozaburou and then later wrestling it from the Big Five, he had done many many through background checks, searches and examinations of Kaiba Corp and it's subsidiary companies and dummy corporations. He thought he had dug up the last of the military related projects years ago.
But no, like a bad trap card that popped up at the worst inconvenient time, another one had been discovered.
It was a good thing that Gozaburou was already dead, twice over, or Kaiba would have taken care of the bastard himself.
This one was a research and development site, nothing was completely authorized to be finished unless checked with the head of Kaiba Corp, which was good. Research was not slated to be completed for another several years, meaning the R&D had been discovered several years early, the cover blown during an audit of a company far down the chain when it was realised that no one in that branch of Kaiba Corp made small cutesy plush animals.
Animals were about the only thing that the cover did have in common. Mokuba and Jounouchi hung close to him, their eyes both hard and soft in sympathy and outrage as they looked at the creatures in the cages. They had stopped to pet some of the friendlier ones at the front of the building --he'd have to remind the Mutt to wash his hands before they got home, he was quite sure the blond now smelled of the Golden Retriever he'd petted-- but the farther in they got, the more they subtly clung to each other.
Kaiba had been informed that the company was experimenting with something that had been shelved decades ago by a different company, some sort of mysterious splicer formula called 'MixMaster' in the hopes of re-created it and fixing some of the flaws.
End result: War beasts. Juggernauts. Hideous creatures designed to be released onto the battlefield, sowing terror and destruction wherever they were seen.
That was something Kaiba was not going to allow to come to fruition. Not after seeing the grotesque results. Some of the resulting mangled creatures where poorly suited for life, such as the frog with wings. Other concoctions were simply terrifying. Nothing should ever be crossed with either a piranha or a badger. The resulting misshapen creatures were ill tempered to say the least.
It made his chest ache and his stomach roll to look up on the creatures. The nightmares his brother and the guard dog he knew they were going to have was not something he cared to think about entire too much.
The labs themselves were sterile and clean, up to date on the safety codes that seemed to be blatantly ignored when it came to the animals themselves.
Kaiba was not impressed.
"Regular little shop of horrors around here." Jounouchi muttered under his breath to Mokuba. Mokuba gave a soft chuckle, some of the tenseness in his expression fading at the humour, but he continued to press close to their taller forms, his gentle soul recoiling at the horrors.
Their gracious hosts seemed to pick up on their attitudes, scurrying around like mice, soft muttering sounds in the background while they strolled through. When the cats were away, he supposed.
"What's that thing do?" Mokuba questioned, motioning towards a large complicated device, that looked more like an instrument of torture more than anything else, a large vicious looking nozzle-like contraption on the front.
"Nothing after we dismantle it." Kaiba growled.
Mokuba nodded in accord. The puppy didn't say anything, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw that Kaiba thought was in agreement.
Kaiba dismissed it from his mind, continuing walking through the laboratories, mentally preparing lists, things that would need to be taken care of to close this facility down. Therefore he was totally unprepared to be abruptly shoved into the wall. "Look out!"
His perception of everything seemed to slow down as the Mutt grabbed his brother, interposing himself between Mokuba and the machine they had just commented on. Clear translucent liquid, tossed from the direction of the machine impacted against the back of the blond's head, a smaller second glob striking Jounouchi in the lower back.
For a second, he thought it was water, or something mixed with water to make it somewhat thicker in consistency. A random attack, nothing to get pushed over.
Then the Mutt's eyes rolled to the back of his head as the blond pitched backwards, knees obviously collapsing under him. Kaiba reached out, an arm cradling the back of Jounouchi's head, interposing himself between the blond and the floor. The impact of the dead weight drove pushed him into a half crouch, still supporting the blond's head and torso.
"JOUNOUCHI!!!" Mokuba shrieked, his face white, giving stark contrast to the dark hair and grey eyes wide in horror.
"He's fine." He gave slight breath to assure his brother, using his free hand to check Jounouchi's pulse at the neck. The pulse was there, fast, but stable. The Mutt seemed to whimper in response, face pinched in a grimace of pain. Dammit. "Turn that thing off NOW!!" Kaiba roared. "And get a Medic here!!!"
Mokuba shook off his horror, running to the large machine and tearing what appeared to be the power cords out of the wall, causing the whine of machinery to fade. The shouts and footsteps of people running to see what the commotion was about echoed in the room instead, filling it with general chaos.
Kaiba's jaw twitched as he glared, stoically ignoring the tingling feeling in his arm where the blond's head rested.
+++
+++
Jounouchi woke up with his head aching, throbbing to the beat of his heart. His mouth wasn't much better, feeling as if he'd been licking someone's disgusting carpet for the past three hours. Dry, fuzzy and feeling like something died there.
Damn. He hated hangovers.
And his ass hurt. This is why he didn't drink, not since that one time with Honda and the fruit punch. For something like -looked- like water, vodka sure did pack a mean punch. Nasty hangover too. He swore he'd learned his lesson that time and hadn't touched anything even resembling alcoholic since then. He sure as hell didn't want to end up like his father, drinking his sorrows away at any opportunity.
Not to mention he hated the whole 'What the Hell Did I Do Last Night?!' feeling.
With a groan, he opened his eyes, then pinched them shut at the grey blur drove a spike of pain into his head. With a
grimace, he moved a hand to cover his eyes. Or attempted to do so. He couldn't move his arms.
Panic caused him to raise his head and opened his eyes. He was in some sort of hospital bed, straps held him down, arms tied to the sides.
WHAT THE HELL?!
"Oh, good." As if summoned, Kaiba appeared by the side of his bed yet some how managing to loom over him, his demeanour colder than ice. "You're finally awake."
"Kaiba." Jounouchi snapped back. "The hell's going on? Get me out of these!!"
"They're on there for your own protection." Blue Eyes was furious, that much was clear. "You were writhing so much they were afraid you were going to hurt yourself. You took out several orderlies in the process."
Go him, only he didn't know what the heck would lead him to do something like that.
Kaiba leaned over him, hands pressing against the pillows on either side of Jounouchi's head, arms pinning his head so he couldn't look away from Blue Eye's face. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" The business man's voice was soft, but cold. Colder than a penguin's belly in Antarctica.
It didn't fool Jounouchi in the slightest. Even with all his mental processors not quite working right, he knew when the elder Kaiba was beyond furious. He just wasn't used to seeing it directed at -him-.
"Um..." He wished he knew. Really he did. Cause right now he got the feeling he was -real- low on the food chain. And he had a very good feeling about which particular Dragon was at the top of the food chain.
"You purposely put yourself in the path of danger." Kaiba growled "If you hadn't taken the time to push me out of the way, you could have gotten both yourself and Mokuba out of the way!"
"That's my JOB!" He snapped back. They'd had this conversation before. "I'm your freaking guard dog, Kaiba! You hired me to guard Mokuba and protecting Mokuba means watching over you too!!"
Something flickered in Kaiba's face, he looked almost surprised for a second, pleased, then the scowl returned. "So he -can- talk."
"Shove it, Kaiba." Jounouchi growled. "I can still take you down."
He could too. He'd just eat dirt several times in the process.
"Whatever." Blue Eyes dismissed it. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Jounouchi shrugged, trying to wrestle his wrists out of the bindings hold him down. Man, he hated not being able to move. "Touring some freaky house of horrors with you and Mokuba."
Freaky house of horrors... blank in memory... waking up in hospital... tied to bed... in non-kinky fashion...
Something was not right in Jounouchi Katsuya's world.
"Where's Mokuba?" He glanced around, trying to peer around the wall that was Kaiba. "He okay?"
"He's fine." Kaiba deadpanned. "What else do you remember?"
"And nothing." He glared at Kaiba. "What's going on? I feel fine." Okay, maybe not fine, but definitely nothing that would require enforced bed rest. Colours weren't quite as bright, his butt still hurt, the room stunk of chemicals and other things he didn't want to think about and Kaiba looked like someone had just done something unmentionable to one of his precious Blue Eyes White Dragon cards.
Kaiba straighten, releasing him from the temporary imprisonment, pointedly not answering his question. "The doctors will be with you shortly."
Doctors? "Kaiba?"
Blue Eyes stepped back, his face as expressionless as a stone statue. Jounouchi felt his temper melt away as cold fear replaced it, his heart nearly stopping in his chest. Something really bad had happened... Something so bad it had -scared- Kaiba.
Kaiba didn't get scared.
Jounouchi was now officially approaching shit-faced panicked.
"Get some rest and don't worry about anything." Kaiba informed him, -ordered- him. "I'm taking care of everything."
"Kaiba?" There was a bit of a pleading tone in his voice, but he dismissed it as worry.
"And in the future," Blue Eye's tone was so cold Jounouchi was vaguely surprised that the air wasn't littered in icicles. "Consider that your orders are to get -yourself- out of the path of danger as well Mokuba and/or myself." With that lovely parting shot, the businessman turned and walked out of the room without a backwards glance.
"Kaiba!" Jounouchi howled after him. Damn him, leaving before saying anything useful. And he was still tied to the bed.
Which majorly sucked.
And he still didn't know what the hell had happened!!!
+++
+++
Jounouchi looked away from the mirror in disgust. It hadn't changed since the last time he'd looked into it.
He had dog ears.
And a tail. Which is why his butt had been hurting in the hospital. It was a lot more comfortable sleeping on his side or his stomach than his back due to the sudden extension of his tailbone.
The day after waking up in the hospital, and freed from the restraints, he'd had to deal with an armful of wailing Mokuba, who was claiming that this was all his fault. It'd taken him a while to get the wild haired boy to calm down enough to make sense and then he couldn't get Mokuba to shut up.
The younger Kaiba hadn't hired him on for himself. Mokuba was smart and had a habit of looking farther into the future than his brother, at least on personal things and had realised that in a few years, he'd be leaving for school and other opportunities. It didn't make sense for the brothers to stay together all the time, not if one or the other of them was needed elsewhere. But he didn't want to leave his brother by himself either.
Which is where Jounouchi came in. Yeah, Mokuba needed him as a body guard, this last incident proved that, but it was more to get him and Kaiba used to each other. He'd been training them to get along, so that when Mokuba left, Kaiba would still have someone to make sure he didn't press himself too hard, made sure he ate and took breaks. Get him away from the business mogul that was too easy for Kaiba to fall into. Especially as a way to protect himself from 'mortal concerns'.
Mokuba also claimed it was his fault for tripping over the cord that was attached to the machine, shaking the last globs of the formula out of the machine and striking Jounouchi with them.
The funny thing was, this MixMaster formula originally wasn't supposed to work on humans. But that little 'flaw' had been fixed when they deconstructed and reconstructed the formula. Yay. Lucky him. Mixed with the first DNA the formula had found, the Golden Retriever he'd been petting earlier.
... which, considering the uglies around the place, was luck on his part, it could have been much much worse...
So Mokuba thought the entire thing was his fault, first for bringing Jounouchi in and second for tripping over things like any growing kid who's still adjusting to their latest growth spurt. There'd also been some guilt over the costume party outfit, for some strange reason as well. It'd taken him a while to convince the dark haired kid that it wasn't his fault, it was just one of those things that happened.
It was taking Jounouchi longer to convince himself of that. Egyptian Gods he could deal with. Virtual Reality that wasn't so Virtual, he could deal with. Real Dragons and Monsters coming to life he could deal with. Himself turning into a monster took a little more work.
He hadn't seen Kaiba since the ass reaming in the hospital, but he'd been assured that he didn't need to worry about the hospital bills; he'd had a private room and doctor, or his job. He'd always have a job, or at least a steady pay check from Kaiba Corp. Kaiba Corp looked after their own. Or if he wanted to have some sort of surgery to remove and try to correct the 'damage', it would be covered.
Only the fact remained that his DNA had been permanently altered. He could go back to looking like a human, but he'd never be fully human again. The scientists at the lab they'd been touring, once they'd gotten over the shock, had been quite thrilled, ecstatic even, over how well he survived the process, with most of his mental capabilities in check. Evidently there'd been some worry over his getting hit on the back of the head with the goop if he'd wake up a vegetable. But the major changes in his skull had been a decrease in sight, colours weren't as bright as they had been, things were more grey-tinged, but the increase in hearing and smell made up for that.
There was also a bit more of a craving for meat, but that really didn't bother him. He was usually a bit more of a carnivore anyway.
No, what was bothering him currently was that it had been a week and he was still moping over this. He was Jounouchi Katsuya, dammit, and he wasn't a quitter. He didn't hide away in his room like someone who had given up. He hadn't given up in learning Duel Monsters and he'd never given up in a duel.
Jounouchi Katsuya didn't back down from a challenge.
And that's what this was.
He rose, stretching muscles that were stiff from staying in one position too long and began to hunt for some clothes to wear. Or at least something he could poke a hole into for the tail.
It was time to stop sulking and go out and grab the Dragon by the tail.
...or how ever it was that saying went.
+++
+++
Kaiba was woken up out of a fairly light sleep by something impacting on his bed, making the mattress jump and shake. "RISE AND SHINE BLUE EYES!!!" An ecstatic voice bellowed.
He opened his eyes in time to see a pillow fly towards his head. Without a second thought, he rolled off the bed, rising to meet his attacker. Dammit, how had someone gotten in with out his or Jounouchi's knowing?
Jounouchi was grinning like a bastard, dressed in sweats, standing on the bed, one hip shot out cockly, a pillow in hand. He knew it, the doctors had lied, the blond was clearly insane. Being altered had obviously fried the last of his brain cells.
"You've been neglecting your training." Jounouchi sing-sang, waving the pillow lazily. "Which means I've been neglecting my training."
The pillow went flying through the air, towards his face again. Kaiba dodged, grabbing the flying fabric. He got a twisted grin, almost a snarl --were the blond's teeth sharper? It sure looked like it-- in return, Jounouchi grabbing a second pillow and wielding it like a weapon. "Let's spar."
With a Kamikaze yell, Jounouchi came flying at him, pillow raised high above his head. Kaiba dodged to the side, spinning and thwacking the blond with the pillow he was holding.
"Have you lost your mental capacities?" He demanded as Jounouchi landed in a crouch, attempting to turn it into a sweep-kick that got tangled in the blankets that had fallen to the floor when Kaiba had rolled off.
"Nah. No more than usual." The cheerful voice was normal sounding, scarily so. "C'mon, what are y'waiting for? You've got the advantage, I'm the one with the weird counterweight on my butt."
That almost made sense. "Very well." He agreed, swinging his own pillow down on the blond's head. Jounouchi laughed, finally freeing his leg from the blankets and rolling away.
"About time." The blond grinned, a friendly one this time. "My balance is shot ta hell. How else am I supposed to correct it if all you do is stand there and stare?"
He was not staring. Much. He used the distraction to toss his pillow at Jounouchi and dive across the bed for one of the other ones.
"Oh, yeah!!" Jounouchi cheered, chasing after him. "It's on now!"
+
Mokuba staggered down the hall to see what all the commotion was in Niisama's bedroom that had woken him up. It sounded like there was some sort of fight going on, with all the shouts, thumps and thwacks echoing from there. Covering a yawn, he opened the door and peeked in.
Jounouchi and Niisama were in the middle what appeared to be a pillow fight. If you counted Jounouchi falling on his ass a lot and Niisama laughing at him.
He smiled sleepily. Good. They had made up. About time.
Mokuba padded back down the hallway, not bothering to shut the door behind him as he went to grab a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. Maybe a bowl and some milk. That way he had something to munch on while he watched them spar.
Good plan for first thing in the morning. He'd figure out where to go from there.
+++
+++
'MixMaster' is a gene splicer from the Tremors TV Series. It mutates anything it comes in contact with, mixing whatever DNA it can find, but isn't supposed to work on humans.
But this creates a whole mess of critters on the show aside from the Graboids, Shriekers and AssBlasters. Anything from Cletus' (played by Christopher Lloyd!! XD ) dog to glow in the dark mutated bacteria. -Which is why Jounouchi's lucky to have been mixed with the dog. He could be part giant bacteria now!!! *laughs*
Hey, Dogmatix? In case we don't get a chance to talk to you soon, one of your plunnies you gave us is gonna pop up in here, a few scenes down the road. ^___^
... dude. Yu-Gi-Oh! so addictive. Even sucky dub. Kinda like a soap opera/train wreck. You know it's bad but you just can't stop giggling and look away.
Okay, anyway... here's where the fic gets weird. Some scenes have been re-written (again. Still not happy with the Yuugi-sleepover chapter)
References to the 'Tremors' TV series from the Sci-Fi channel, (yeah, based off those Graboid movies) a damn funny show. Highly recommend it to those who haven't seen it.
+++
"Oi, Mokuba..." Jounouchi didn't bother looking away from the large television screen as he trounced the younger Kaiba in a racing video game. "How come your brother wears all those buckles and stuff? He tryin' ta outdo Yuugi in the bondage statement department or something?"
The dark haired boy snorted, not quite breaking out into full laughter. "Didn't you know? 'Niisama's got this anti-gravity problem, from a lab accident. If he doesn't strap his clothing to him, it'll all go flying off."
"Yer kidding." The blond tore his gaze from the screen to stare at the wild haired teen. "Tell me yer kiddin'."
"Yup!" Mokuba laughed, using the distraction to pull his racer ahead of Jounouchi's. Jounouchi muffled a curse and turned his attention back to the game.
"Brat."
Mokuba snickered in return, even as Jounouchi regained his number one spot on the track. "Nah. Honestly, I don't know why he dresses like that." Mokuba shrugged. "Intimidation? I dunno. He picks out his clothes, not me."
"Thank goodness for that." Jounouchi's nose wrinkled at the thought of the werewolf costume Mokuba had talked him into for the costume party. Mokuba had ended up playing -his- bodyguard, not the other way around. It seemed like everyone and their mother had been trying to pet him. Too weird. "You'd have everyone running around in stripes."
"What's wrong with stripes?!" Mokuba demanded, making an effort to pull ahead. Jounouchi blocked him with a mad cackle. "Better than that purple trench coat of his. -I- certainly never would have chosen that. Can we 'grape'?"
"Yeah, that was a little fruity, wasn't it?" Jounouchi smirked. Mokuba ran his car into his in retaliation. Jounouchi grinned. "Mebbe he's just colour blind. Y'know, why he sticks to black and white so much."
"Or he does it to freak the hell out of the Board Members. He's been running the company for how many years now and they still can't get him into a suit and tie?" The smaller teen chuckled with amusement. There was no love lost between the Kaiba Brothers and the Kaiba Corp Board.
"Status thing then? He dresses like that ta show he's powerful 'nuff that he doesn't got to dress like the rest of the population?" He ventured. The strange flared outfits certainly leant to the frightening air that cause many of the weaker duellists to run screaming at just their first sight of Kaiba. He grinned. "-Or it could be that he simply doesn't like ties."
Mokuba snorted, drawing attention to their own causal clothing --neither of them would ever voluntarily be caught dead wearing anything resembling a tie.
"Point." Jounouchi conceded.
"You know..." Mokuba said thoughtfully "We're going to have to go shopping at some point. If I gotta go to some fancy shindig, that means you've gotta go too and I know for a fact you don't have anything formal enough to wear in your closet."
The word was little more than a squeak out of his throat. "Shopping?"
"Yup." He didn't have to look to see Mokuba's grin turn fierce, predator like. He'd seen it well enough when the younger boy had talked him into wearing his oldest, worn pair of jeans for the werewolf costume. The younger Kaiba had something already planned in that devious little brain of his, something that did NOT bode well for what remained of Jounouchi's sanity. "It'll be -fun-."
Mokuba's car pulled ahead of his, beating his to the finish line.
"...Shit."
+++
+++
"Yuuuuuuuuugiiii!!" While the smaller man was expecting a joyful welcome from his best friend Jounouchi, he was not expecting the double tackle he got from his best friend and the younger Kaiba as soon the door opened to the Kaiba household.
The younger Kaiba who was now nearly as tall as him, with a great deal more mass as well. "Aah!"
"Nice to know I'm welcomed..." He commented weakly, the breath nearly squeezed out of him.
Jounouchi was a hands-on, easy to read person. If he liked you, you got hugs, play wrestling and hair messings. If he didn't like you, you got fists in the face and feet in the gut. Mokuba in the past had been affectionate only towards his brother, but a few months in Jounouchi's influence had obviously changed that.
Both ends of the 'Yuugi sandwich' snickered happily, shaking him slightly as they broke apart, pulling him to the warmth of the mansion.
"Wasn't sure if you'd really come or not!" Mokuba grinned; bouncing around him as Jounouchi took is pack. "Cause 'Niisama's gonna be here too, but I made him promise not to challenge you to any duels. It'd be a shame to ruin a perfectly good movie night fighting."
Hint hint, nudge nudge. "I'll do my best not to challenge him to any duels either." He promised.
"You'd think Duelling was all they ever thought about in this household." Jounouchi grumbled good-naturedly. This earned him wide-eyed incredulous looks from both the still Number One Ranking Duellist and the Number Two Ranking Duellist's younger brother.
"It's not?!"
Yuugi found himself being pulled through the maze of the house by Mokuba, both of them laughing madly as Jounouchi chased them, mildly-cursing all the way. The blond chased them around a large room obviously meant as a comfortable living room, the three of them duck, dodging and scrambling over furniture, their laughter punctuated by the occasional yips and yells until they collapsed in a snickering heap on the sofa.
He glanced up in time to see the elder Kaiba standing in the doorway with a dispassionate eye. "Yo, Kaiba-kun!" He waved.
Kaiba inclined his head and walked away.
"Don't take it personally." Mokuba suggested from his sprawled position, pinning Jounouchi's legs to the sofa. "He's just not used to having other people in the house."
"Oi, Mokuba." Jounouchi prodded the dark haired boy with a leg. "Is he? ...Y'know."
The younger Kaiba seemed to know immediately what the blond was saying. "He should be fine."
"Okay." Any apparent worry dissipated at Mokuba's words. Yuugi raised an eyebrow. Jounouchi? Worrying about Kaiba? When did this happened?
Of course, he supposed that having lived under the same roof as him for the past several months might have had something to do with it. And Jounouchi had yet to show up at the game shop cursing and sputtering like he used to after an encounter with Kaiba, so that was a positive sign.
Yuugi grinned. It was always nice to see his friends get along.
"So, food first or movie first or just grab snacks to watch during movie?" Jounouchi was practically crackling with glee, nearly pushing the two smaller people off the sofa onto the floor.
"Food!" Mokuba cheered, hopping off. "We can bring it up here and watch the movie!"
Jounouchi just grinned, glancing over with a slightly apologetic shrug. "What can I say? Kid after my own heart."
"You've trained him well, Jounouchi-kun."
"Hey!"
+
Several hours later, the spiky haired boy glanced down at his best friend, who was sprawled out over two of the three futons they had put on the floor and snoring. Mokuba wasn't much better, using Jounouchi's rising and falling chest as a pillow, snoring in counter point to the blond.
Yuugi smiled serenely at his friends. They had worn each other out, watching the movies, munching on popcorn and junk food, wrestling like kids and chattering away at each other. He should really be asleep with them as well, he'd been just as bad as the two of them, but he wanted to enjoy the peaceful moment a while longer.
Jounouchi seemed happy here. Yuugi was both relived and uneasy. Jounouchi and Mokuba got along well, but he had a few unanswered questions. Most of them dealing with the taller man standing in the doorway watching them.
He slipped out from under Jounouchi's sprawled arm and quietly padded over to Kaiba. Once again, he wished he were just a little bit taller. It was hard to feel intimidating when you barely came up to someone's chest. They stood in silence for several minutes, watching the sleepers, before Kaiba finally acknowledged him.
"Yuugi."
"Kaiba-kun."
Yuugi sparkled at the stoic businessman. "It's nice to see my friends finally getting along."
Kaiba grunted.
Yuugi smiled wider. "And I just wanted to let you know that while I may not have a puzzle any longer, I do have a shovel." He said sweetly. "And a tomb robber that owes me a favour or two."
Actually, it was more like he owed Bakura a favour or two, but Ryou would probably be more than happy to help out...
And if he didn't, Malik knew the -best- places to hide a body.
An eyebrow lifted, Kaiba turning the full force of his attention at him. "Is that a threat?" The words were a low hiss, a menacing rumble from a not-quite slumbering dragon.
"No. Just letting you know." He smiled cheerfully. "Jounouchi-kun is my best friend. I don't like to see him hurt."
He liked to get see his friends get along. However, that did not mean he was going to stand by and do nothing if his friends were hurting each other. And Jounouchi was far less likely to hurt Kaiba then Kaiba was to hurt Jounouchi. Although, granted, Kaiba was more likely to do it without realizing it.
"I have no interest in the puppy." Kaiba said disdainfully, returning his attention towards the slumbering boys again. "He's Mokuba's concern, not mine."
Yuugi nodded. And that would be why Jounouchi talked about the older Kaiba as often as he did Mokuba. And why Kaiba was staring as much at Jounouchi as he was his brother....
Well, he supposed some things never changed. Kaiba was, and probably always would be stubborn, especially when it came to letting people in close around him. It was just one of those things that made him Kaiba.
Just as Jounouchi was stubborn when it came to the people he cared about.
It would be interesting to see who would win the clash of the thick skulls.
"Just as long as we both know where the other stands." He smiled genteelly and patted Kaiba on the arm. "Good night, Kaiba-kun. Sleep well."
Kaiba grunted in response. Yuugi merely bowed his head and and returned to the futons, curling up next to Jounouchi again.
He was aware of the taller boy's presence lurking in the doorway for a while.
+
Yuugi woke up again a few hours before dawn, glancing around the unfamiliar surroundings. To his surprise, he counted three heads beside his own on the futons instead of two.
Jounouchi was next to him, snoring away softly. On the far end he could make out Mokuba's wild locks.
And Kaiba slept peacefully nestled in between the two of them, Mokuba now partly sprawled across his brother instead of his keeper. Jounouchi hadn't seemed to have noticed, one of his arms draped across Kaiba where it had earlier been around Mokuba.
He hid a grin, silently wishing his other self could see this, their fearsome rival looking not quite so fierce, in a peaceful way.
One thing his other self had taught him was that there was an art to sharing a bed with other people. It had been awkward, the first several times his other self had slept outside of the puzzle, for one reason or another. Didn't matter that they were two parts of a whole, or that they were similar sizes, it was just... odd, to be asleep and roll over and find someone there. Limbs didn't match up, waking up with hair, non-corporal or not, in your face and mouth.
Not to mention buckles getting tangled up...
But after a while, they just kind of figured it out. Yuugi always slept better with his other self nearby, feeling safe, protected.
He'd fallen out of the habit in recent years, his other self having passed on, but none of his current bed companions apparently had any of that awkwardness.
Almost made him wonder. Maybe they were getting along better then either was saying.
A yawn blind-sided him and he lay back down, snuggled contentedly next to his larger friend's side. It was nice, almost like when his other self had been there....
+
When Yuugi woke up again, long after the sun had risen, it was just the three of them again, Yuugi tucked up against one of Jounouchi's sides, Mokuba against his other, pinning the blankets covering Jounouchi down.
Perhaps he had just dreamed that Kaiba had slept with them last night.
Then again, perhaps he wasn't.
He smiled, sleepily betting on the latter. Especially when Mokuba stirred and whispered his brother's name.
On the other hand, perhaps it wasn't any of his business. But it would certainly be interesting to see what came of this.
+++
+++
Wake up.
Climb out of Kaiba's bed.
Put Mokuba back in his bed.
Go back to sleep. In own bed.
Wake up.
Glare at smirking bastard Kaiba.
Go to spar.
Hand Kaiba his ass.
Get ass handed back to several times.
Take shower.
Get dressed.
Wake up Mokuba.
Eat breakfast.
Finally wake up. Coffee good.
Notice something odd in reflection of coffee pot.
"WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM?!"
"Language, Jounouchi." Mokuba scolded from over his bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.
"Yeah... but... but... " Jounouchi gestured empathically towards his reflection, then reversed the motion and tugged at the leather collar around his neck.
The one with the initials 'KC' hanging from the front like tags on a dog's collar. It certainly hadn't been on him when he went to sleep last night...
"Oh. Cool!" Mokuba grinned. "I see you got a communicator!"
"Communicator?" What did that have to do with dog collars?!
"Yeah." Mokuba turned the collar of his school uniform to once side, to show off the 'KC' pin displayed there. "'Niisama and I use them to communicate, usually while hosting a duel. Is easier than a phone, cause all you have to do is press it once to start talking, so it's hands free, which is nice when we're looking for trouble. It's pretty much for emergency use only. Since you got one, think this means that 'Niisama finally accepts you as my guard."
Oh.
Well, that still didn't explain how the dog collar got there...
Note to self: Get more sleep. Obviously messing with awareness levels.
"Couldn't I have gotten something round? Something that screams less 'Property of Kaiba Corp'?"
+++
+++
"Yer fooling me."
Mokuba smirked. "Nope."
Jounouchi's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "Kaiba's startin' a Duelling School?"
"Academy." Mokuba affirmed.
"Ya mean that ownin' the rights to the game, the theme parks and the tournaments aren't enough? He's gotta start his own school too?"
"Yeah, well..." Mokuba shrugged. "Look at it this way. The really -good- Duellists do really bad in school, right?"
"Well..." The blond scratched his head. "I prolly wouldn't have done much better even without ditching to attend tournaments. But Yuugi went from being one of the highest ranking students to one of the lowest after startin' on Duel Monsters."
"Exactly. The good Duellists, the serious ones, don't tend to do as well in school -because- they spend all that time away from it for Tournaments and Duels and such. So if you have a school -for- Duelling..."
"...Then the serious Duellists have a way to Duel, go to school and even possibly graduate."
"You got it." Mokuba's grin lit up his entire face. "And Kaiba Corp has an immediate target audience to test and give us feedback on the latest duelling innovations too."
"Beta testing and feedback, all in one centralised location." Jounouchi grinned, putting his new-found business knowledge to work. Mokuba had been a patient teacher, teaching him jargon and behind the scenes of the business world once he'd admitted he was clueless as to what exactly everyone was busy with. Suddenly what had seemed like mindless meetings made sense. Or some of them anyway, some of them -were- really mindless. But it was really surprising to realise just exactly how hard Kaiba worked. "Smart."
"Yes!" Mokuba cheered. "He -can- be taught!!!"
"Eh, shaddup." It wasn't nice to hit your boss... it wasn't nice to hit your boss... However, hair noogies were okay. Which he then quickly proceeded to do, gleefully wrapping an arm around the wild-haired boy's neck and proceeding to rub the knuckles of his fist into Mokuba's scalp. The teen squawked, laughed and proceeded to attempt to squirm his way out of Jounouchi's grasp.
Which is how Kaiba found them when he opened the door to the stopped limo, to see what was holding them up. One perfectly arched eyebrow rose at the display of roughhousing. "If you're done molesting my brother..."
"'NIISAMA!!!!" Mokuba's screech would have been pure comedy in motion, if it hadn't come from less than a hand's breath from his ear. He quickly released his grip so that the younger teen could charge out and attempt to strangle his older brother.
Which was a sight that more than made up for the temporary deafness in one ear...
Grinning slightly to himself, he followed the Kaiba brothers into what was shaping up to be... well, a school. Dorms, Classrooms, Cafeteria, Gymnasium, Auditorium.
Duelling Arenas.
Sweet.
Kaiba grunted upon noticing Jounouchi's attention to the large platforms and hologram projectors. "They should be working. Still need to do testing to see if the new modifications work."
Mokuba got that look that means he just went from zero to forty in two brain cells flat. Jounouchi held up a hand as he began to look between the two taller men with a calculating gleam in his eyes. "Oh, no..."
"Aw, come on..." Mokuba wheedled.
Kaiba glanced nervously between the two of them.
"It's perfect." Mokuba continued blithely. "You both have your decks, don't you?"
"The Mutt?" The sound out of Kaiba's mouth is halfway between a squeak and a growl.
"Oi. I could kick your butt."
"Unlikely."
Jounouchi grinned, wolf like. Gotcha. "Put yer skills where your mouth is, Dragon-boy."
Slight pause from Kaiba, then the Blue Eyes look came over his features, the one that said that someone was going to be on the end of a dragon driven Burst Stream soon. "You're on."
A cheer from Mokuba, a wave to the technicians and they were on their way up the raised platforms to duel it out. Jounouchi glanced down at his charge, realising that Mokuba was looking back and forth between them with obvious conflict.
"Oi, Mokuba!" He waved. "Cheer us both on!"
Panic disappeared from Mokuba's eyes as the kid waved back. Mokuba may have liked him, but Kaiba was his brother. It wasn't fair to make him choose between the two of them in who to cheer on.
Then it was time to duel.
+
"YE-AH!!" Mokuba cheered, bouncing around. "That was so cool!!! Both the Blue Eyes White Dragon AND the Red Eyes Black Dragon!!! At the same time!!! Whoooooooo!!!"
"Yeah!" Jounouchi grinned, slapping Mokuba five on one of the hyper kid's passes. He was feeling pretty darn good about the duel too.
Kaiba gave them both a stony look. "You lost." He pointed out, clearly not comprehending their obvious enthusiasm.
"Yeah, but it was a close loss." Jounouchi's grin grew wider. He'd had a blast up there. It had been a while since he'd gone head to head with someone who was stronger than he was and wasn't Yuugi. "If Time Wizard hadn't landed on the skull, I would have kicked your ass and you know it."
This earned him a disdainful snort. "Placing the outcome of the entire duel on one spin-"
"Works well fer me, so shaddup about it." Jounouchi drawled lazily. "You got yer techniques, I got mine. And next time, we're gonna cream ya."
"'We'-?" Oooo... the Imperial tone was back. He must have struck a nerve.
"Me and the rest of my deck. Why? Ya nervous?"
"Hardly." But there weren't any comments about not wasting the energy on a lower ranking worthy duellist, so Jounouchi took that as a positive sign. Sometimes when dealing with Kaiba, it was more what he didn't say than what he did say.
"So what's with the colour scheme around here anyway?" He asked, changing the subject. "Red, Blue, Yellow. Your designer guys forget the rest of the colour palette?"
"The three levels of classes, actually." Kaiba informed him mildly, although there was still a touch of distain in his tone. "Ra Gold, Osiris Blue and Silpher Red."
"Who's top?"
"Ra, actually. Osiris is middle level and Silpher is left for rabble-rousers and lowerclass players."
Jounouchi paused. Waaaaait a minute... Ra being top he could understand, something about him being the top Egyptian god or something. The God of the sun, which accounted for the yellow.
But Silpher had been Yuugi's card, before he got the other two. And Silpher was the lowest level...
"Still got some animosity there, huh Kaiba?"
"I beg your pardon?" Kaiba's eyebrow rose again. Mokuba snickered, evidently having also caught this slight.
"Never mind. Where's the Yellow's classrooms?"
"Gold. They're not complete yet."
"Right over here, Jounouchi!" Mokuba volunteered, bounding off.
"Perfect." He quickly followed, loosing Kaiba in the process. Kaiba would probably kill him for this, which was half the fun.
"What are we doing?" Mokuba giggled, glancing back.
"Being a deviant high school malcontent." He grinned.
"Sweet!" Mokuba bounced. "Which room do you want, Jounouchi?"
"Toilets."
"Just past the Egyptian room." Mokuba lead the way.
"Egyptian room?" He echoed.
"Since many of our... past adventures kinda originated from Egypt, 'Niisama thought it was a good idea to teach students exactly where the game came from, to prevent it happening a second time." Mokuba shrugged. He had a bit of an easier time accepting the strange magical occurrences than his brother, but he was still more a child of science then magic. "Toilets?"
"Here we are." Jounouchi spotted the toilets and ducked into the men's room, noticing the nice clean walls. On the third stall, he crouched down, pulling a pen out of his pocket and began to write.
"Graffiti?" Mokuba's eyes were wide and incredulous.
"Every school has it." He agreed. "Doesn't seem like one if it doesn't. There. Tell me whatcha think. It ain't no 'They paint these walls to stop my pen, but the outhouse bandit has struck again', but I think it's appropriate."
He didn't have to ask twice, Mokuba crouching down to read it. "Hail to the Sun God, He's a Real Fun God, Ra Ra Ra..."
"'Niisama's probably gonna kill you for that." Mokuba informed him soberly, although his face was scrunched in mirth. "I like it."
"Glad to be of service." Jounouchi snapped a sloppy mock-salute, causing the smaller boy to finally break down into giggles. "Now just need to think of rhymes for 'Osiris' and 'Slipher'...."
+++
+++
Crap.
Crap crap crap crap with a whole plate of crapolla on the side.
He'd woken up late. The sun was up, lighting Kaiba's room through the closed curtains just enough to see easily.
And here he was, pinned by Mokuba on one side and Kaiba on the other, their body weight pressing against him, holding him down and preventing him from getting the hell out of there.
Trapped. Crap.
He nudged Mokuba with an elbow the best he could. "Wake up, Mokuba." He hissed, deliberately -not- looking at Ol' Blue Eyes at his back. He was dead. D-E-D, dead. "Wake up."
The tangled mass of black hair that was Mokuba stirred and mumbled a bit, then settled back down, one arm flopping over Jounouchi. Dammit. "Wake UP." He nudged the teen again. "Dammit, I -so- don't wanna know what your brother's gonna say when he wakes up and finds me here."
"He's going to say it would be a shame to waste the one morning this month that can be used for sleeping late arguing." Kaiba's sleep-rough voice rumbled at his back, causing all of his muscles in his body to freeze. Oh... shit.
"Go back to sleep, Mutt." Kaiba ordered drowsily, shifting slightly and somehow managing to press closer. "Mokuba will most likely wake in a few hours and demand to eat cereal and watch cartoons in bed."
"Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs." Mokuba murmured sleepily. "And that new duelling anime."
Jounouchi's head hit the pillow. He wasn't dead. He wasn't getting his ass kicked from here to Pluto.
When had he stepped into the Twilight Zone?
"Sleep, Mutt." Kaiba ordered again.
Oh... kay...
Well, sleep was good. He obviously wasn't going anywhere anyway. And if Kaiba wasn't going to beat him bloody for finding him in his bed, he wasn't going to argue.
And when they woke up in the morning, they'd watch Saturday morning cartoons, get hyped up on sugared cereals and Mokuba and him would team up and skunk Kaiba in a pillow fight.
All and all, that actually sounded like a pretty good start to a weekend to him...
+++
+++
To say that Seto Kaiba was annoyed would be a vast understatement.
He was -livid-.
After taking Kaiba Corporation from Gozaburou and then later wrestling it from the Big Five, he had done many many through background checks, searches and examinations of Kaiba Corp and it's subsidiary companies and dummy corporations. He thought he had dug up the last of the military related projects years ago.
But no, like a bad trap card that popped up at the worst inconvenient time, another one had been discovered.
It was a good thing that Gozaburou was already dead, twice over, or Kaiba would have taken care of the bastard himself.
This one was a research and development site, nothing was completely authorized to be finished unless checked with the head of Kaiba Corp, which was good. Research was not slated to be completed for another several years, meaning the R&D had been discovered several years early, the cover blown during an audit of a company far down the chain when it was realised that no one in that branch of Kaiba Corp made small cutesy plush animals.
Animals were about the only thing that the cover did have in common. Mokuba and Jounouchi hung close to him, their eyes both hard and soft in sympathy and outrage as they looked at the creatures in the cages. They had stopped to pet some of the friendlier ones at the front of the building --he'd have to remind the Mutt to wash his hands before they got home, he was quite sure the blond now smelled of the Golden Retriever he'd petted-- but the farther in they got, the more they subtly clung to each other.
Kaiba had been informed that the company was experimenting with something that had been shelved decades ago by a different company, some sort of mysterious splicer formula called 'MixMaster' in the hopes of re-created it and fixing some of the flaws.
End result: War beasts. Juggernauts. Hideous creatures designed to be released onto the battlefield, sowing terror and destruction wherever they were seen.
That was something Kaiba was not going to allow to come to fruition. Not after seeing the grotesque results. Some of the resulting mangled creatures where poorly suited for life, such as the frog with wings. Other concoctions were simply terrifying. Nothing should ever be crossed with either a piranha or a badger. The resulting misshapen creatures were ill tempered to say the least.
It made his chest ache and his stomach roll to look up on the creatures. The nightmares his brother and the guard dog he knew they were going to have was not something he cared to think about entire too much.
The labs themselves were sterile and clean, up to date on the safety codes that seemed to be blatantly ignored when it came to the animals themselves.
Kaiba was not impressed.
"Regular little shop of horrors around here." Jounouchi muttered under his breath to Mokuba. Mokuba gave a soft chuckle, some of the tenseness in his expression fading at the humour, but he continued to press close to their taller forms, his gentle soul recoiling at the horrors.
Their gracious hosts seemed to pick up on their attitudes, scurrying around like mice, soft muttering sounds in the background while they strolled through. When the cats were away, he supposed.
"What's that thing do?" Mokuba questioned, motioning towards a large complicated device, that looked more like an instrument of torture more than anything else, a large vicious looking nozzle-like contraption on the front.
"Nothing after we dismantle it." Kaiba growled.
Mokuba nodded in accord. The puppy didn't say anything, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw that Kaiba thought was in agreement.
Kaiba dismissed it from his mind, continuing walking through the laboratories, mentally preparing lists, things that would need to be taken care of to close this facility down. Therefore he was totally unprepared to be abruptly shoved into the wall. "Look out!"
His perception of everything seemed to slow down as the Mutt grabbed his brother, interposing himself between Mokuba and the machine they had just commented on. Clear translucent liquid, tossed from the direction of the machine impacted against the back of the blond's head, a smaller second glob striking Jounouchi in the lower back.
For a second, he thought it was water, or something mixed with water to make it somewhat thicker in consistency. A random attack, nothing to get pushed over.
Then the Mutt's eyes rolled to the back of his head as the blond pitched backwards, knees obviously collapsing under him. Kaiba reached out, an arm cradling the back of Jounouchi's head, interposing himself between the blond and the floor. The impact of the dead weight drove pushed him into a half crouch, still supporting the blond's head and torso.
"JOUNOUCHI!!!" Mokuba shrieked, his face white, giving stark contrast to the dark hair and grey eyes wide in horror.
"He's fine." He gave slight breath to assure his brother, using his free hand to check Jounouchi's pulse at the neck. The pulse was there, fast, but stable. The Mutt seemed to whimper in response, face pinched in a grimace of pain. Dammit. "Turn that thing off NOW!!" Kaiba roared. "And get a Medic here!!!"
Mokuba shook off his horror, running to the large machine and tearing what appeared to be the power cords out of the wall, causing the whine of machinery to fade. The shouts and footsteps of people running to see what the commotion was about echoed in the room instead, filling it with general chaos.
Kaiba's jaw twitched as he glared, stoically ignoring the tingling feeling in his arm where the blond's head rested.
+++
+++
Jounouchi woke up with his head aching, throbbing to the beat of his heart. His mouth wasn't much better, feeling as if he'd been licking someone's disgusting carpet for the past three hours. Dry, fuzzy and feeling like something died there.
Damn. He hated hangovers.
And his ass hurt. This is why he didn't drink, not since that one time with Honda and the fruit punch. For something like -looked- like water, vodka sure did pack a mean punch. Nasty hangover too. He swore he'd learned his lesson that time and hadn't touched anything even resembling alcoholic since then. He sure as hell didn't want to end up like his father, drinking his sorrows away at any opportunity.
Not to mention he hated the whole 'What the Hell Did I Do Last Night?!' feeling.
With a groan, he opened his eyes, then pinched them shut at the grey blur drove a spike of pain into his head. With a
grimace, he moved a hand to cover his eyes. Or attempted to do so. He couldn't move his arms.
Panic caused him to raise his head and opened his eyes. He was in some sort of hospital bed, straps held him down, arms tied to the sides.
WHAT THE HELL?!
"Oh, good." As if summoned, Kaiba appeared by the side of his bed yet some how managing to loom over him, his demeanour colder than ice. "You're finally awake."
"Kaiba." Jounouchi snapped back. "The hell's going on? Get me out of these!!"
"They're on there for your own protection." Blue Eyes was furious, that much was clear. "You were writhing so much they were afraid you were going to hurt yourself. You took out several orderlies in the process."
Go him, only he didn't know what the heck would lead him to do something like that.
Kaiba leaned over him, hands pressing against the pillows on either side of Jounouchi's head, arms pinning his head so he couldn't look away from Blue Eye's face. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" The business man's voice was soft, but cold. Colder than a penguin's belly in Antarctica.
It didn't fool Jounouchi in the slightest. Even with all his mental processors not quite working right, he knew when the elder Kaiba was beyond furious. He just wasn't used to seeing it directed at -him-.
"Um..." He wished he knew. Really he did. Cause right now he got the feeling he was -real- low on the food chain. And he had a very good feeling about which particular Dragon was at the top of the food chain.
"You purposely put yourself in the path of danger." Kaiba growled "If you hadn't taken the time to push me out of the way, you could have gotten both yourself and Mokuba out of the way!"
"That's my JOB!" He snapped back. They'd had this conversation before. "I'm your freaking guard dog, Kaiba! You hired me to guard Mokuba and protecting Mokuba means watching over you too!!"
Something flickered in Kaiba's face, he looked almost surprised for a second, pleased, then the scowl returned. "So he -can- talk."
"Shove it, Kaiba." Jounouchi growled. "I can still take you down."
He could too. He'd just eat dirt several times in the process.
"Whatever." Blue Eyes dismissed it. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Jounouchi shrugged, trying to wrestle his wrists out of the bindings hold him down. Man, he hated not being able to move. "Touring some freaky house of horrors with you and Mokuba."
Freaky house of horrors... blank in memory... waking up in hospital... tied to bed... in non-kinky fashion...
Something was not right in Jounouchi Katsuya's world.
"Where's Mokuba?" He glanced around, trying to peer around the wall that was Kaiba. "He okay?"
"He's fine." Kaiba deadpanned. "What else do you remember?"
"And nothing." He glared at Kaiba. "What's going on? I feel fine." Okay, maybe not fine, but definitely nothing that would require enforced bed rest. Colours weren't quite as bright, his butt still hurt, the room stunk of chemicals and other things he didn't want to think about and Kaiba looked like someone had just done something unmentionable to one of his precious Blue Eyes White Dragon cards.
Kaiba straighten, releasing him from the temporary imprisonment, pointedly not answering his question. "The doctors will be with you shortly."
Doctors? "Kaiba?"
Blue Eyes stepped back, his face as expressionless as a stone statue. Jounouchi felt his temper melt away as cold fear replaced it, his heart nearly stopping in his chest. Something really bad had happened... Something so bad it had -scared- Kaiba.
Kaiba didn't get scared.
Jounouchi was now officially approaching shit-faced panicked.
"Get some rest and don't worry about anything." Kaiba informed him, -ordered- him. "I'm taking care of everything."
"Kaiba?" There was a bit of a pleading tone in his voice, but he dismissed it as worry.
"And in the future," Blue Eye's tone was so cold Jounouchi was vaguely surprised that the air wasn't littered in icicles. "Consider that your orders are to get -yourself- out of the path of danger as well Mokuba and/or myself." With that lovely parting shot, the businessman turned and walked out of the room without a backwards glance.
"Kaiba!" Jounouchi howled after him. Damn him, leaving before saying anything useful. And he was still tied to the bed.
Which majorly sucked.
And he still didn't know what the hell had happened!!!
+++
+++
Jounouchi looked away from the mirror in disgust. It hadn't changed since the last time he'd looked into it.
He had dog ears.
And a tail. Which is why his butt had been hurting in the hospital. It was a lot more comfortable sleeping on his side or his stomach than his back due to the sudden extension of his tailbone.
The day after waking up in the hospital, and freed from the restraints, he'd had to deal with an armful of wailing Mokuba, who was claiming that this was all his fault. It'd taken him a while to get the wild haired boy to calm down enough to make sense and then he couldn't get Mokuba to shut up.
The younger Kaiba hadn't hired him on for himself. Mokuba was smart and had a habit of looking farther into the future than his brother, at least on personal things and had realised that in a few years, he'd be leaving for school and other opportunities. It didn't make sense for the brothers to stay together all the time, not if one or the other of them was needed elsewhere. But he didn't want to leave his brother by himself either.
Which is where Jounouchi came in. Yeah, Mokuba needed him as a body guard, this last incident proved that, but it was more to get him and Kaiba used to each other. He'd been training them to get along, so that when Mokuba left, Kaiba would still have someone to make sure he didn't press himself too hard, made sure he ate and took breaks. Get him away from the business mogul that was too easy for Kaiba to fall into. Especially as a way to protect himself from 'mortal concerns'.
Mokuba also claimed it was his fault for tripping over the cord that was attached to the machine, shaking the last globs of the formula out of the machine and striking Jounouchi with them.
The funny thing was, this MixMaster formula originally wasn't supposed to work on humans. But that little 'flaw' had been fixed when they deconstructed and reconstructed the formula. Yay. Lucky him. Mixed with the first DNA the formula had found, the Golden Retriever he'd been petting earlier.
... which, considering the uglies around the place, was luck on his part, it could have been much much worse...
So Mokuba thought the entire thing was his fault, first for bringing Jounouchi in and second for tripping over things like any growing kid who's still adjusting to their latest growth spurt. There'd also been some guilt over the costume party outfit, for some strange reason as well. It'd taken him a while to convince the dark haired kid that it wasn't his fault, it was just one of those things that happened.
It was taking Jounouchi longer to convince himself of that. Egyptian Gods he could deal with. Virtual Reality that wasn't so Virtual, he could deal with. Real Dragons and Monsters coming to life he could deal with. Himself turning into a monster took a little more work.
He hadn't seen Kaiba since the ass reaming in the hospital, but he'd been assured that he didn't need to worry about the hospital bills; he'd had a private room and doctor, or his job. He'd always have a job, or at least a steady pay check from Kaiba Corp. Kaiba Corp looked after their own. Or if he wanted to have some sort of surgery to remove and try to correct the 'damage', it would be covered.
Only the fact remained that his DNA had been permanently altered. He could go back to looking like a human, but he'd never be fully human again. The scientists at the lab they'd been touring, once they'd gotten over the shock, had been quite thrilled, ecstatic even, over how well he survived the process, with most of his mental capabilities in check. Evidently there'd been some worry over his getting hit on the back of the head with the goop if he'd wake up a vegetable. But the major changes in his skull had been a decrease in sight, colours weren't as bright as they had been, things were more grey-tinged, but the increase in hearing and smell made up for that.
There was also a bit more of a craving for meat, but that really didn't bother him. He was usually a bit more of a carnivore anyway.
No, what was bothering him currently was that it had been a week and he was still moping over this. He was Jounouchi Katsuya, dammit, and he wasn't a quitter. He didn't hide away in his room like someone who had given up. He hadn't given up in learning Duel Monsters and he'd never given up in a duel.
Jounouchi Katsuya didn't back down from a challenge.
And that's what this was.
He rose, stretching muscles that were stiff from staying in one position too long and began to hunt for some clothes to wear. Or at least something he could poke a hole into for the tail.
It was time to stop sulking and go out and grab the Dragon by the tail.
...or how ever it was that saying went.
+++
+++
Kaiba was woken up out of a fairly light sleep by something impacting on his bed, making the mattress jump and shake. "RISE AND SHINE BLUE EYES!!!" An ecstatic voice bellowed.
He opened his eyes in time to see a pillow fly towards his head. Without a second thought, he rolled off the bed, rising to meet his attacker. Dammit, how had someone gotten in with out his or Jounouchi's knowing?
Jounouchi was grinning like a bastard, dressed in sweats, standing on the bed, one hip shot out cockly, a pillow in hand. He knew it, the doctors had lied, the blond was clearly insane. Being altered had obviously fried the last of his brain cells.
"You've been neglecting your training." Jounouchi sing-sang, waving the pillow lazily. "Which means I've been neglecting my training."
The pillow went flying through the air, towards his face again. Kaiba dodged, grabbing the flying fabric. He got a twisted grin, almost a snarl --were the blond's teeth sharper? It sure looked like it-- in return, Jounouchi grabbing a second pillow and wielding it like a weapon. "Let's spar."
With a Kamikaze yell, Jounouchi came flying at him, pillow raised high above his head. Kaiba dodged to the side, spinning and thwacking the blond with the pillow he was holding.
"Have you lost your mental capacities?" He demanded as Jounouchi landed in a crouch, attempting to turn it into a sweep-kick that got tangled in the blankets that had fallen to the floor when Kaiba had rolled off.
"Nah. No more than usual." The cheerful voice was normal sounding, scarily so. "C'mon, what are y'waiting for? You've got the advantage, I'm the one with the weird counterweight on my butt."
That almost made sense. "Very well." He agreed, swinging his own pillow down on the blond's head. Jounouchi laughed, finally freeing his leg from the blankets and rolling away.
"About time." The blond grinned, a friendly one this time. "My balance is shot ta hell. How else am I supposed to correct it if all you do is stand there and stare?"
He was not staring. Much. He used the distraction to toss his pillow at Jounouchi and dive across the bed for one of the other ones.
"Oh, yeah!!" Jounouchi cheered, chasing after him. "It's on now!"
+
Mokuba staggered down the hall to see what all the commotion was in Niisama's bedroom that had woken him up. It sounded like there was some sort of fight going on, with all the shouts, thumps and thwacks echoing from there. Covering a yawn, he opened the door and peeked in.
Jounouchi and Niisama were in the middle what appeared to be a pillow fight. If you counted Jounouchi falling on his ass a lot and Niisama laughing at him.
He smiled sleepily. Good. They had made up. About time.
Mokuba padded back down the hallway, not bothering to shut the door behind him as he went to grab a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. Maybe a bowl and some milk. That way he had something to munch on while he watched them spar.
Good plan for first thing in the morning. He'd figure out where to go from there.
+++
+++
'MixMaster' is a gene splicer from the Tremors TV Series. It mutates anything it comes in contact with, mixing whatever DNA it can find, but isn't supposed to work on humans.
But this creates a whole mess of critters on the show aside from the Graboids, Shriekers and AssBlasters. Anything from Cletus' (played by Christopher Lloyd!! XD ) dog to glow in the dark mutated bacteria. -Which is why Jounouchi's lucky to have been mixed with the dog. He could be part giant bacteria now!!! *laughs*
Hey, Dogmatix? In case we don't get a chance to talk to you soon, one of your plunnies you gave us is gonna pop up in here, a few scenes down the road. ^___^
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 11:57 pm (UTC)Just to be mildly anal, Osiris and Slifer are the same card. Slifer is the English name. The three Gods are Ra, Osiris, and Obelisk.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 11:01 pm (UTC)Will fix. >_
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 04:45 am (UTC)Mmk, edits time!
The strange flared outfits certainly leant to the frightening air that cause many of the weaker duellists to run screaming at just their first sight of Kaiba.
That should be "caused", past tense.
Some of the resulting mangled creatures where poorly suited for life, such as the frog with wings.
Were, not where. Typo. ^_^
S'all I could find. Cheers.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 11:42 pm (UTC)Thanks!!! As much fun as the references are, that's just about as far as it's going. Can't really see it going much more that than with those two.
Not unless this turns out to be a hell of a long fic. >_<
Eeps!! Thanks for the corrections!!! Always very grateful when people catch them! ((Huggles!))
no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 12:10 am (UTC)I'm glad. I don't mind shounen-ai implications, but I'm never going to work myself up to, say, SoG. I'm just...not a yaoi fangirl, and I'm comfortable with that. (Despite the efforts of an acquiantance of mine, who tried to convert me with Yami no Matsuei. Loved the art, wasn't big on the sex.)
Eeps!! Thanks for the corrections!!! Always very grateful when people catch them! ((Huggles!))
*huggles back* Not a problem. I've done enough complaining about other author's lack of proper beta readers that it's nice when I can help someone by being their beta. ^__^
no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 06:47 pm (UTC)SoG isn't really that much more shonen-ai than this fic.
If you're curious about it, skip the first two chapters (which is where all the serious stuff is) and the rest is just light relationship growth with occasional kissing between two guys. ^^;;
Don't mind reading yaoi or lemons, but there's not a snowballs chance in Tucson that we're gonna be writing it any time soon.
*huggles back* Not a problem. I've done enough complaining about other author's lack of proper beta readers that it's nice when I can help someone by being their beta. ^__^
For which we're EXTREMELY thankful!!! XD
no subject
Date: 2005-02-12 09:06 pm (UTC)Really? *blinks* Huh. Well, as soon as Real Life stops kicking me while I'm down (read: when school stops being evil) I'll give it a shot.
For which we're EXTREMELY thankful!!! XD
Anytime. Er, that is, if we understand the fandom. ^__^;;
Oh! Before I forget: you're a HP fan, right? You should check out http://www.sugarquill.net/forum/ It's a mostly R/Hr site, but the forum is full of intelligent authors, and there are book discussions and fic rantings and just a bunch of people supporting each other and helping one another out. I love the place; there's something for authors, Real-Life-oriented people, and HP nuts. The sense of community is awesome, and I love it. ^___^
*falls over laughing*
Date: 2005-02-10 02:04 am (UTC)2. Malik knowing where to hide the bodies
3. the pillow fight
*snickers madly* The pillow-fight Needs to be drawn. Icka? Dogmatix?
PUPPY
Date: 2005-02-16 01:28 pm (UTC)My first thoughts regards Jonouchi's transformation:
1) PUPPY!
2)...Yugi is gonna kill Kaiba
Loved the pillow fight, that was just too cute for words, I agree, it needs to be drawn